Papillon De Nuit

How does it feel to walk barefoot, half naked with your eyes
closed and all you can feel is your frozen bones. Down there you
can't see, you can't talk... you can't be. The only thing you are
able to do is to hear; to hear them talking, to hear them cursing
at you and to hear them coldly laughing. Time has no meaning over
there, whether it is morning or night it doesn't matter since all
you can see and recognize is darkness. Imagine that they are
torturing you everyday, invading every inch of your body, nothing
is yours anymore not even your soul. Your head is crowded with
their words, they are screaming in your ears "you are nothing,
you are just a number on the list." You are beaten you so hard to
the point that you won't be able to feel anything. Down there you
are not a human anymore, they treat you like an animal. Down
there feelings are not allowed, no emotions. There you don't have
the right to love, to hate or to dream. But after spending hours
or maybe days torturing you and throwing you inside that cold
dirty small room, they happily tell you "And now you have the
right to feel pain." You may cry sometimes, well whether you cry
in tears or in blood, it doesn't matter since you still recognize
the warmth of the drops of your rainy sky. Family, those faces
that you won't be able to touch again. You are lucky enough to
see them in those rare moments between nightmares and reality. Of
course that is, if you still remember them; their faces, their
voices and their smiles. And here you are once again - alone in a
very cold place. A place not colder than your loneliness though.
All you can do is countdown the screams of the other people who
are just like you: lonely and cold. In the end and during those
empty seconds where you are still allowed to wonder you ask
yourself "why am I here?" Of course they will answer you in a
cold filthy voice: "Because you think and because you said NO ..
and you know very well that you are not allowed to do so." Then
you realize that just because you were brave and strong to say
"Enough.. enough corruption, enough of these lies and enough of
the dirty politics," they have destroyed your life. And yes, you
have been tortured because you dared to say "I want to be free, I
want to live decently." They stole everything form you just
because you asked for your right to speak your mind and because
you told them to stop stealing your money and because you
demanded the truth. And now you feel stronger, saying to yourself
"you are in the right path, hold on a little longer." Looking
around you, all you can see is bright darkness that blinded your
eyes. Suddenly you see a light coming in from the small gap
between the door and the ground. You start to crawl toward that
light, just like a moth. You whisper to yourself "I will
survive, I will not give up. I'll do it for my country, for my
people." And then you do.

____________________________________

You may not understand what I am talking about, not because you
can't but maybe because you didn't spend 23 years of your life
living under a dictatorship. Sadly in my country and in many
others, people were jailed because they opposed the state regime.
For many years in my country, we were not allowed to say what was
on our minds. We were simply not able to ask for our fundamental
rights. Many of them died, some are mentally disabled and others
are trying to survive. They sacrificed their life for a better
future and for happier days. Nothing is over and our battle is
still going on. All human beings are equal and have the right to
live peacefully. We are all meant to be free and to express our
opinions freely and without pressures. Just recalling one
situation: Last time in class one of my classmates said "in this
world only the powerful people will survive," and my teacher
replied with a calm smile "call me delusional but I believe only
the good ones do." And yes they will.